Let's Talk About Moonlight—Not the "Heroic Graciousness" at the Oscars

Mar 2, 2017

On Sunday, an arthouse film that centers on both Black people and queerness, and that went on to earn over $22 million with a budget of just $1.5 million, made history by winning Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards. But while Moonlight's historic success has made news, its story has been retold as one about the virtues of white graciousness.

These stories all convey the underlying subtext that everyone associated with La La Land is magnanimous just for allowing Moonlight to win the award that it had actually won. The obsession with Horowitz's behavior is bizarre—and the fact that many commentators have chosen to focus on how noble and heroic a white man was for merely telling the truth, as if that kind of basic decency is anomalous, revolts me. What exactly did anyone think would happen? Someone made a mistake and someone else behaved the way anyone in that situation should. Yes, it's unfortunate that those folks had to face that kind of public embarrassment—but they did not win.

And now, there is the Variety cover story featuring the director of La La Land, Damien Chazelle, and the director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins. On the cover: a smiling Chazelle and a smiling but slouched-down Jenkins on the cover. The headline? "Amazing Grace."

It has beenpointed out that traditionally the winner of the Best Director award is given the cover and interview; and Variety co-editor in-chief Claudia Eller has explained as much in an editor's letter. If everything had proceeded as usual, then Chazelle (who took home the Best Director award) would have been honored solo, meaning Jenkins—as he himself pointed out—is the "guest." If the Variety editors decided that, given the circumstances, they would forgo tradition, such is their right. Even so, that concept—"Amazing Grace"—still plays into the heroic graciousness narrative. It's not a headline that highlights their artistic achievement; it focuses more on how nicely one of them acted on that stage.

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Must chime in here: this cover is traditionally reserved for best director. It's tradition

Barry Jenkins seems like an incredibly nice guy, but he's also a Black man in Hollywood. I don't expect him to rail off on Hollywood like he's a hero in a blaxploitation flick. But, as a gay Black man inspired by, albeit still shocked at, Moonlight's historic success, I find it unnerving to see the film effectively compelled to share its feat with La La Land.

For his part, in all the confusion, Jenkins did not have the time to deliver the acceptance speech he had prepared. As the director explained to Variety: "I had something that I had prepared to say, and that thing went completely out the window. I've been saying that [co-writer] Tarell [Alvin McCraney] and I are that kid in the film, and that kid does not grow up to make a piece of art that gets eight Academy Award nominations. It's a dream I never allowed myself to have. When we were sitting there, and that dream of winning didn't come true, I took it off the table. But then I had to very quickly get back into that place. And my first thought was to get to the stage to give Jordan a hug as quickly as possible."

That's what is most grating about all of this. Not only was Moonlight robbed of its moment and the triumph of a typical winner's narrative, but in the aftermath, the cast and crew are still being forced to share what should be an exclusive experience with another film.

Let Jenkins and all of the talented people involved in this film bask in their greatness. Let the people who are typically never acknowledged in spaces like the Academy Awards be seen shining there. Let's stop talking about a matter that, while peculiar and surprising, is nonetheless largely irrelevant. Moonlight won the year's biggest film prize. Let's get back to celebrating its success—as we should have been doing in the first place.

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